A $349 price tag for 80GB PS3 in March 2009 at the earliest would be a good positive move by Sony which would result in more sales of PS3 post Xmas 2008 with the launch of quality software titles in KZ2 and RE 5 around March 2009.
The $299 price tag should be put in place I believe in September or October 2009. Those who are worried about PS3 price would be happy to know that their will be a $300 PS3 within 12 months time. I would personally hold off purchase of PS3 until I see a $300 PS3 console available to me and a bigger library of PS3 exclusives.
The second most important factor regarding console sales is games and the PS3 will have a lot of quality games in 2009. PS3 exclusives of 2009 include: KZ2, UnCharted 2, Heavy Rain, Infamous and God of War 3.
PS3 has a good library of games at the moment that is building but the price of the console is the most deciding factor in regards to the PS3 hardware sales. I have no idea how much money is being made per PS3 sold. Hopefully Sony can afford a price cut on PS3 in USA by March 2009 at the earliest.
The Wii will once again sell a lot of consoles and games and many exclusive games on the Wii are out in 2009. The Wii games are too numerous to list here. I believe the Wii will once again stay at the magical $249 console price tag.
The X360 will more than likely implement an additional $50 price cut on the three SKUs changing from: Arcade $199 Pro: $299 Elite:$399 to Arcade: $149 Pro: $249 Elite: $349. This will be post E3 around September/October 2009 to counter PS3 price cuts and marking the 4th anniversary of the Xbox 360's launch. The XBox 360 has arguably the best library of games and is growing and 2009 will see a lot of games launched on XBox 360- including exclusives games and DLC as well as a boat load of multi-platforms that will sell most on XBox 360.
* The above information includes my future console price predictions for 2009. Readers discretion is required and I may be wrong with my analysis that I have provided.
** Edited. Price of XBox 360 SKUs fixed.
